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Topic: To PG or not PG (Read 2497 times)

SilverZ

Considering the latest waves of spoilers rolling off of mf.com in the past weeks, ROTS looks to be a symphony of severed appendages, death, and destruction. We know enough now to look at how strikingly different this episode appears to be, if all pans out as true - spoiler recap time, so go away if you don't want to know:

Count Dooku is confronted by Anakin, who severs both of the Sith Lord's hands, then performs a scissor-job decapitation with two lightsabers.

Palpatine lances 2 Jedi in quick succession, then decapitates Kit Fisto, his head landing on the Chancellor's desk for the rest of the scene.

As Mace Windu confronts Palpatine in the same scene, our man from Inglewood looses his saber hand via lightsaber and is promptly fried by lightning, being sent out a window in a death plummet to the streets below.

Anakin performs the "sterilization" of the Jedi Temple, implying off-screen the murder of man and child alike.

Padme, a pregnant woman, is Force-choked and (apparently) thrown against a wall. She later, of course, dies of injuries brought on by this.

Obi Wan manages to effectively turn Anakin into the Black Night from Holy Grail, and his torso is left to burn in lava, after which we get to see the scarred and mutilated body rebuilt into Darth Vader.

Then there are the normal Clone Wars battles and some yet to be confirmed fates of Neimoidians and various minor characters.

That’s a solid PG-13. While I'm not in any way opposed to violence or a darker tone in the storytelling, I am surprised that so much seems to be making it to the screen.

Looking at the Saga as a whole, does a radical spike in graphical content and turn in tonality for Episode III raise any issues for anyone? How is the average movie-goer going to react to something like this, considering the much lighter PG material in the surrounding episodes?

This movie has to be PG-13. If all of the spoliers are true, the movie might have to be R, but that is highly unlikely. However George Lucas has said that he thinks ROTS will have to be PG-13 and that he is going to tell his story the way it needs to be told. George has campaigned hard in the past to make his Star Wars movies PG, but not this time. I think we are looking at a PG-13.

Looking at the Saga as a whole, does a radical spike in graphical content and turn in tonality for Episode III raise any issues for anyone? How is the average movie-goer going to react to something like this, considering the much lighter PG material in the surrounding episodes?

That's very interesting and I have recently been thinking about the same thing. I think Episode III will bring everything together very nicely. It will be the most violent it looks like, but it's also the most action packed. Also, it is possible that the OT might be intensified a bit when the Super Edition comes out or whatever the final entire saga package thing comes out.

One of the interesting things about the PT is that it seems to mature with Anakin. In TPM, we have a more lighthearted "kiddie" movie for a ten year old kid. In AOTC we have a more angst-ridden lovestruck teen movie for an angst-ridden lovestruck teenager. ROTS sounds like a journey through hell, for a man going through hell. I'm really starting to like the contrast.

Lucas has mentioned in interviews that it might be tough to get a PG rating for this one. I'm all for a PG-13 rating for this film though. This is absolutely THE DARKEST episode of the entire saga. I think pushing things to that next rating level is the right thing to do for the overall story.

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From the spoilers and other things we have read/seen over the past few months, I have a hard time seeing how this film can avoid a PG-13 rating. That doesn't really bother me particularly, because in some ways it allows it to be "cooler". There was something sort of special, at least from a kid standpoint, about having all the movies by rated PG. The only thing that is going to push this one over to the next rating bracket will likely be violence, and not even blood, just things getting lopped off or something.

I think it has to be PG-13 as well. The main reason is because the supposed "hero" is the one who is turning bad and doing most of the killing and limb lopping. That alone would send parental guided little kids into a tizzy and worse yet the parents themselves.

I think they will give it the 13 rating just to be safe more than anything else. Plus, this will actually help marketing I believe. Because now the media Interviewers will say "Ohhhhh, Star Wars has a PG-13 rating. Why is that Geoge? Is this film more violent than the other Star Wars movies?"

Then Lucas can hype up that it's a violent movie. People may consider that to be more interesting than the typical PG fluff from a Star Wars flick and think "Hey, this movie has some meat and potatoes this time!!!"

Kids will come in droves to see the film regardless of the rating IMO. But the extra attention of the PG-13 rating will get the attention of the general public a bit more.

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SilverZ

I'm starting to think that the rating of ROTS is only one of many differences that will bring on new debate about SW. No doubt there will be a jolt in media discussion once a rating is given to this. It'll also probably lead to new criticism for Lucas from certain groups.

I'm excited that we as adult fans are (hopefully) getting that meat and potatoes flick we've wanted since ESB. That's the most important thing to me. But I also imagine debate popping up about why the tone shift wasn't good in the long run for its target kid audience.

Sort of a side note - I skimmed through Return of the Jedi last night and ended up getting sucked into the ending, and I think the reason this happened was because of the new subtext ROTS adds. I think as a biproduct of the ROTS events, the emotional impact of Jedi is much, much improved. I'd always felt Jedi's last scenes should have been packed with tragedy and drama of a father-son conflict, but lacked it almost entirely. Now you can't help but compare the choices being made, the actions taking place, and the dialog being spoken to ROTS events, and the subtext elevates the climax substantially.

Remember that PG-13 was pretty much single-handedly created because of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The fact that "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" was so brutally violent in parts (can you imagine seeing a heart being ripped out in a PG film these days?) and still rated PG caused a lot of parents to get upset that their children were seeing "real" violence in a film that was judged "OK" for everyone. Of course, this was back in the day when parents actually gave a flip about what their kids were watching and didn't just use Nintendo as a babysitter, but I digress.

Anyway, Spielberg was in on the creation of the rating (since another film he produced, Joe Dante's "Gremlins" was the other "PG offender") so films that weren't necessarily violent or gory or sexual in nature but that weren't something you'd want little Johnny watching at a matinee could still be released without the stigma of an R rating, which means no kids could get into see it (theoretically).

I've become a rather harsh critic of the MPAA's rating system these last few years (why are films that have any hint of nudity or sexuality given R ratings while films that are excessively violent given as low as a PG? How is a movie like the last Austin Powers a PG-13 film and not an R?) and I've grown to loathe the mentality of movie studios that will have director's cut their films down, even as early in the script stage, in order to avoid an R rating. Case in point is "Alien vs. Predator" (which I will not discuss the quality of said film, which I felt was about one step, quality wise, above a porno, and the porno at least would have been interesting), which had a PG-13 rating. All four "Alien" movies and both "Predator" movies before it had R ratings. Alien vs. Predator should have as well.

Anyway, my point after all that nonsensical rambling is that Lucas has the power to make the film he wants without a studio interfering. If he cuts the film down in tone in order to get a PG, it will contradict his manifesto of doing what he wants outside of the Hollywood system and not letting anyone else influence the stories he wants to tell. Thankfully, for all the hell he catches from AICN-esque sheep for "raping (their) childhood", he has integrity and I think the movie will be what it needs to be, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17* and as long as it is what he wants to tell, I'll be happy.

I can clearly remember the creation of PG-13. Being a 9-Year old in 1984 I was incensed that there would be cool movies like Temple of Doom that my folks wouldn't let me go see. I don't think its really a big deal any more with all of the violence and stuff in movies but if ROTS had come out in 1986 and it was PG-13 I would have been mad

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Now you can't help but compare the choices being made, the actions taking place, and the dialog being spoken to ROTS events, and the subtext elevates the climax substantially.

And Jared, I didn't really think about this at all but as Spoilers go, Mace/Palpatine and Luke/Palpatine are almost identical scenarios in which Anakin get to look at the same choices...I haven't thought about it all yet but there definitely are a lot more layers to ROTJ now (except for the 2 Death Stars thing)

SilverZ

Don't expect instances of brutal graphic violence -- this is, after all a Star Wars movie. That said, though, there are major instances of onscreen deaths and injury, including ones where body parts are separated from the whole. It's a very different climate these days, and it's hard to guess how a rating board will react to that. Jango's decapitation, after all, almost nudged Episode II into PG-13 territory.

One of the interesting things about the PT is that it seems to mature with Anakin. In TPM, we have a more lighthearted "kiddie" movie for a ten year old kid. In AOTC we have a more angst-ridden lovestruck teen movie for an angst-ridden lovestruck teenager. ROTS sounds like a journey through hell, for a man going through hell. I'm really starting to like the contrast.